


Exit: Pursued By a Bear

by cereal_whore



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula + jet + zuko: the unstable trinity, Dark Zuko (Avatar), Depressed Zuko, Gen, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lonely Zuko, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Ozai's A+ Parenting, Suicidal Thoughts, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko Angst, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, me: how deviantart emo can i make this sound., no beta bc if i gotta read this bullshit like this you do too, okay not rlly dark he just super emo, this sounds like 2010 tumblr and fake woke.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 08:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19825909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal_whore/pseuds/cereal_whore
Summary: "But he knows they can't ever be anything natural: two artificial things can't make something organic."Or: Zuko's lonely, and he had many years to reflect on that. (the gang might be mildly concerned)-“Yeah! Where do you think you’ll be in five years?"Zuko stares. “Dead,” he blurts without processed forethought





	Exit: Pursued By a Bear

**Author's Note:**

> sksksksk sorry about any grammar/spelling mistakes  
> also hahha watch me work off of the scene i wrote where the gang learns about uH agni kai and zuko's banishment into a "gang finds out about the scar's origin" fic
> 
> IMPORTANT:  
> this fic was heavily inspired from the prompt/read of this fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19482205, it's super good (but not ATLAS, it's bnha)! it's about dabi (who's a todoroki in this fic) it's p good would 12/10 recommend.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hhhhHhH

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

And to Zuko, that's quite the silly question: an emperor. It makes sense to follow his father's footsteps. Is it not obvious? Considering how he’s a prince?

But when Lu Ten inquired him with a charismatic smile that conveys childhood and artificial ignorance one uses to cushion someone as young as he was, Zuko could only glance at him with an unsuspicious gaze. “I want to work with the war generals. Like Uncle and Father!” He chirps, swaying from the weepy branch that’s barely a couple feet off the ground, yet still unnerves his vertigo whenever he sits on it. “And ‘Zula will be next to me and we’ll rule the kingdom and fight battles and be just like you!” He continues, unperfected lips sputtering stutters and fragmented sentences, the way that always happened every time he talked too quickly from an adrenaline of emotion. 

Usually in front of Father, he’d instinctively slow his speech, cautiously dictating his pronunciation and articulation to avoid a disgruntled look or sharp glare, especially if there are other important people like Father around.

“Ha! Sure, the three of us can be powerful together. And we can travel and explore the world, right?” Lu Ten’s words glitter dramatically brighter than the excitement towards prospect within his dark eyes. (Zuko recalls the candidness in his statement, and even now, older and only slightly wiser if not stupider at times, still thinks Lu Ten actually visualized the future as possible. This unproven idea is probably the only reason why Zuko may ever be glad at the idea that Lu Ten died young: he didn’t have to see the way he and Azula fell apart at least. And, selfishly, Zuko’s glad he didn’t have to witness Zuko’s inability to be anything to Azula, much less an older brother).

“Yeah!” Zuko gleams, a smarmy grin working across his pale visage caked with dust and woodchips from the garden he was wrestling Lu Ten in earlier. Mommy might shutter her gaze scornfully at his cakey clothes and the broken stalks of her crumpled fireblossoms, but she wouldn’t be _too_ mad. She never was the angry one.

“Okay. But you have to be big to do that.” Lu Ten muses, and Zuko nods solemnly. That makes sense. He’s barely six, and Azula is struggling to form even the vowels in her name right now. They have to at _least_ be big enough to speak properly to command their armies before they can start travelling.

Maybe when he turns ten.

“What about in five years?” Lu Ten asks, his timbre replicating the one he’d always use whenever they’re near the end of their treasure hunts. Though, this conversation is starting to bore him because he has no current answer- after all, his idea of five years is working up to being an adult until they can all be pirates finding land and gold for his father and nation. So nothing really different. “Can’t be the same answer! You’ll still be too young in five years.”

“Right. In five years ‘Zula probably will still be playing with dolls, we have to wait until we’re older.” He reaffirms with a serious nod. Maybe not when he turns ten- maybe in a couple more years they can start their lives as adults. “Um. I guess then I’ll be the best older brother in five years? It’ll be so fun! The other day, I taught ‘Zula how to say my name!”

“No you didn’t. I heard her say ‘Zuzu’.”

Flushing at the childish nickname coming out of his admirably older relative, Zuko sticks his tongue out, scowling at Lu Ten’s lack of remorse. If anything, his flippant smirk has broadened to the crinkles of his eyes. “Yeah, ‘cause she can’t say stuff properly.” He mutters. “S’not my fault. She doesn’t use ‘Zuzu’ in front of Father though, because he thinks it’s childish. He gets mad. So I’m trying to teach her to say ‘Zuko’ instead.”

Now, Lu Ten’s expression is uncharacteristically stony. “She’s three.” 

At that redundant statement, Zuko furrows his eyebrows into a suspicious squint. Well _duh._ “Yeah? I know how old she is!” He gripes. “I can count. I’m _five_ , not a baby like her.”

“Azula can walk and climb already- when you were her age, you could barely get up the stool yourself,” and Zuko is familiar with Lu Ten’s lilting attitude to know that he isn’t mocking him truly, and it’s all playful, but something about his claim unsettles a small cavity within his hummingbird heart, carving its edges with rusted words disguised with an unassuming tone and a glittering smile. 

His heart, scattering its wings in its birdcage of ribs, always rattles his lungs and hammer against the ivory bars. Usually it’s due to his Father, though. Not because of Lu Ten.

And maybe Lu Ten can sense the anxiety dizzying his little bird, pecking nervously at the hole in its heart that it made home, because his cousin’s strong hands suddenly clasp against his shoulders, and his typically bright countenance fills Zuko’s fuzzing vision. “Ah. You want to be a sword fighter, right? In five years, maybe you’ll be on the way to becoming the best swordsman there is!”

Zuko, quick to adapt due to young age and because he has to when raised underneath his father’s rule, brightens. “Yeah!” Then, his wistfulness collapses along with his facial muscles, into a disheartened gaze distant yet tamed from normalcy and familiarity. “I’m not really good at being a swordsman, much less a fighter though. Can’t even bend fire yet.” He murmurs. 

He averts his gaze, refusing to clasp it with Lu Ten, not wanting to see the common expression of disappointment and apathetic disbelief that servants and relatives would direct at the same news. He knows he’s a _very_ late bloomer, no matter how much his mommy may reassure him with firecracker nuts and salty chocolate. Because giving him free but good food means she just doesn’t want to say the mean truth. “I don’t have very good balance or stamina, either.” He adds. He doesn’t really know what ‘stamina’ means, but Father always brings it up with a disdainful curl of his lips, so it has to be important.

“It’s fine, you’re still a growing boy!”

“I’m shorter than the children of Father’s friends- even the girls! Some of them called me a girl, too.”

“So? Who cares if you happen to have more feminine attributes?” And wow Zuko does not comprehend two-thirds of the fancy vocabulary words Lu Ten just used, but he nods anyways because if anything he’s learned with his pretentious private tutors, is to fake it. “And besides, you’re only five. You’ll grow taller, it’s just that you may take more time.” He exclaims through barred teeth and deceitful tongue that he’s growing to appreciate.

“Anyways, five years?”

“I know you’re trying to distract me.”

“Yeah, but it’s working,” Lu Ten snickers. “So, five years, I’ll come home from the war and hear about stories about how Prince Zuko, heir to the throne over the Fire Nation, can wield two swords at once and bring enemies onto their knees even without relying on bending!”

Lu Ten would never see that happen.

In fact, Lu Ten would never see any future for Zuko even past five years.

* * *

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Certainly not here.

He can’t even _see_ in general- a stiff cast tacky and hard over a cobwebs of stringy muscle and flaky flesh of whatever’s salvaged of his vision is quite the technical extreme of that.

Even nerves not even remotely connected to his eye would dance along his system, sending his limbs flailing and his hummingbird heart damaging its fragile, hollow bones as it stumbles against his ribcage out of panic with each pair of footsteps that increase in volume, out of his vision and stopping him from properly identifying them.

Each step, his teeth rattled and his whipcord body would flinch, throwing himself deeper in the rumpled sheets swathing him in feverish sweat and dewy skin, as he wonders if it’s his father.

While it’s in the norm for his father to never visit him especially over injuries, none of the injuries were as severe as this- even the patches of unsightly brown and tattered skin where Azula ‘accidentally’ slipped her quirk for too long against him during training weren’t as bad. After all, they just required ointment, gauze and zero fuss. If anything, scars inflicted by cracked rope, keloids of burrowed rocks from whenever Azula liked to play tag in the garden with him (even if he said no), and especially the burns acquired from her were encouraged. During training, their mentor would simply fuel her intensity to see if it could at the very least scare him into wrangling his fire into some pathetic control or spawn it by will. His father agreed with all methods, even Azula’s seemingly unprecedented ones, and if Zuko couldn’t even handle those- then really, isn’t the pain just _deserved_ by that point?

However, none of the burns were ever directly by his father’s hand- perhaps bruises and sore wrists were, but nothing as prominent and permanently damaging as a _burn_.

Five years ago, he wouldn’t have believed his father would’ve done this.

Five years up till now, he still doesn’t.

Soft patters alert him, and he smothers his respirations because either way, they were getting too loud as the only distinctive sound in this room. His own breathing was beginning to drive him mad. 

Secondly, he knows only one person whose size could conjure such light footprints.

He grunts as the entire bed creaks loudly as a weight throws itself carelessly onto the mattress, disturbing the tenderness of his fried visage. 

At least the majority of nerves were wrecked to the point where the dull, migraine-inducing throbbing dancing with a sharp, under-the-skin raw jabbing are the only sensations. After the first couple hours, the rhythmatic counters of the two contrasting hurt has reduced to static, background feels, and nothing new could be introduced into the sizzled nervous system around his eye.

“Zuzu!”

He flatly ignores his sister.

He recalls when Zuzu evolved from happy gurgles and affection, into something sinisterly taunting, condescending. 

That milestone happened when Azula was four, and understood that she could continue christening him that nickname without their father’s negative, heavy judgement if she twisted it into something less fond, and into something more purposeful. 

Its purpose was simply to rile Zuko and fluster him, and he _knows_ but he can’t help but react sharply to that nickname, especially since she always insists on using it in front of Father with such a taunting timbre and Father would _reciprocate_ it with a spiteful smile, or in front of Mei and Ty Lee with an obvious blueprint of public humiliation.

“Zu, zu,” she hums, drawling his name, her weight now completely saddled on his weak chest, and he chokes at her body that straddles his lungs, sending black splotches into his currently only functional vision. “Doctors said you can still see out of your eye,” she murmurs, leaning in close, and he reflexively shudders, any sense of embarrassment drained at the prioritization of survival instincts. 

There’s an analytical quality to her cold, calculative gaze that has branched from insouciance into actual interest, but the fixation is detached from sentiment is solely primal curiosity. 

He flickers his eyes to the ceiling fan, his gaze and heavy breathes tempted into the whirlpools of blackness within her gaze, frosty from the dull ring of humanity lining her dilated pupils.

She’s never been necessarily apathetic towards him: she’s much too interested if anything.

A manicured finger taps his heavy bandages, sending a resounding thump through the hollow of its cavern where his fucked up eye is the cave floor. 

And she’s staring at him with two amber eyes, replicate of his only one. 

She always zipped away her actual thoughts, her musings, but always left enough implications in her stimulated features contorting into sardonic sneers that look wrong yet fitting on someone as young as her, as someone who’s only barely ten. 

And to his surprise, Azula actually does voice out a few of her thoughts.

“I want to stab through your bandage. See if your eye is soft. But. You’re kind of already pathetic enough.”

He wishes she kept her thoughts to herself.

* * *

“Five years?”

“Yeah! Where do you think you’ll be in five years?”

Zuko stares. “Dead,” he blurts without processed forethought, and instantly stiffens, unsure as to why he bothered to reply because that’d only spur on the Avatar’s unsightly mouth. 

He should drag the kid back. He’s not sure as to why they’re resting, with his Blue Spirit mask ripped off and tossed beside him, collecting water droplets from the dewy plain. He slaps his palms against his face, burrowing the heel of them into his dry sockets, one of them specifically textured like Braille, as his callouses exfoliates his burnt skin. 

Beside him, the Avatar is also on his back, and they’re staring at galaxies above in the swallowing abyss of a night sky. 

Maybe it’s because they’re currently stunned into buckling knees and forced bonding over the fact that now they have a common enemy who clearly wants to decapitate them both, even though Zuko really chased after the Avatar and broke him out for personal gain. And the Avatar should know that.

In less than a minute, he plans on shattering their silence with a quick blow to the tattooed scalp and slapping his mask back on.

“Dead? Ha. But really.” he continues, undeterred, his Cheshire grin glowing in the darkness.

Zuko blinks, unsure how to reply, and perhaps the nighttime isn’t enough to shroud his expression, and he wishes he never tore off the damn mask out of stupidity from adrenaline rush, because now, the young boy is staring at him, his typically friendly demeanor rumpling in on itself. “Like. Actually?”

“I mean.” He fumbles, and he hates this conversation and he has no idea why the hell he’s even entertaining it- he should just knock out the pest and drag his body back. “I. I guess family is an alternate answer.” But he can’t see it. Can’t see anything about his family other than the one still-portrait an artist painted of them in their formal, stiff wear and passive expressions. Family is not a viable nor seemingly possible future either. “What the hell is this discussion, anyways?” he snarls near the end of his unintelligent response. In five years, he’ll be back in the Fire Nation, with his father acknowledging him as his son (because even though his father was never physically or verbally affectionate like his mother was, he still had _pride_ , Zuko just has to earn it-),

“Oh. Family? That’s a good place to see yourself in five years.”

Five years, his father would accept him, Azula would be _normal_ she wouldn’t be so angry and mean and bitter and maybe she’ll be _happy,_ and he’ll find his mom.

But he knows better than that. To hold faith in Azula’s fracturing personality that sodered itself into sheets of steel, sutured into a mask with fishing wire and determination. To think he’ll really amount to anything underneath his sister’s shadow along with his inescapable image of a failure projected from his lack of abilities and slow progress administered since he was a child. To think that he’ll find mom.

But he found the Avatar, didn’t he?

“Oh, in five years-”

“I don’t care. Get up,” he snarls. He made it this far with nothing but spite, and an ego to match, and he has to finish. His snark and demanding leer doesn’t appear to perturb the Avatar at once, leaving him unsteady and _angry_ because he was never taken seriously, not by Azula, Lu Ten, his father. Not even by Uncle Iroh whose kind but a foolish man for believing in an apathetic god who puppets the cruel, heavy populations with fragile strings of love and hope. 

He can’t even be taken seriously by the Avatar. 

And definitely not by Zhao, spitting _“you’ll never find the Avatar”_. 

Well, the _boy_ is perched right beside him, with luminescent eyes and steady, sage gaze that appears to have formed over galaxies and eons, witnessing the creation of the universe with a foundation of everything positive and _hopeful_ and nothing like the hard hate that must matte his eyes and Zuko wants to _cry_ because he found the Avatar and the Avatar is just a _boy_ who looks more collected than _him_ , who’s _older-_

And they doubted him.

Respiring shallowly, he has to force himself to swallow the hot lump of whatever that scalds the back of his throat. 

It’s not like his left eye even has a proper tear duct amongst spiderwebs of jerky and fading vision for the ball of tears to escape out of, anyways.

“In five years, I want us to all be friends.”

And Zuko freezes. 

“You must have something else, right? Like. C’mon. Dude.” And the Avatar’s doing that _face again_ and Zuko wants nothing more than to slam his knuckles through the barrier of teeth and yank out the boy’s unafraid tongue because who gave him the damn right? 

It’s pity out of ignorance. As if the Avatar has the damn right to judge his attitude and his reasons and decide that they were pathetic enough to invoke misplaced pity and condescending simpers. He doesn’t understand that Zuko doesn’t _need_ nor requested for his sympathies, and that by default he has no right to judge Zuko and cram it down his throat either.

There are a variety of pitiful gazes he’s been on the receiving end of, though the amount being less than the ones of hate and disdain, both are on the same wavelength of imperious judgement.

As if Zuko’s some blind child who’s unable to see from their perspective, as if he’s incapable of comprehending some deeper aspect. Like hell the Avatar knows shit about him.

“You. Don’t you have other dreams? Aspirations? Wishes?”

And he’s still talking.

“Home, was something, right? Anything else? Maybe you want to see a lioned waterfowl, or a flying giraffe?” The kid continues, incredulousness and something sad laced within his tone. The latter ingredient only serves to anger Zuko. “Anything?” And Zuko can stand being judged by family, by authority even if they simply just don’t _get it_ , and his uncle.

Not strangers, and certainly not people younger than him.

And Zuko grips his sword, stepping forward, right as a _flying bison_ swoops down to headheight and the Avatar, with practiced familiarity, leaps onto him. 

Even while saddled on the giant beast, distant in the skies seconds afterwards, leaving Zuko shivering from shock, cold, and _realization_ , he can see the Avatar’s two, glowing eyes in the canvas of black, resembling the stars nailed on the inside of the sky. 

He doesn’t wait for the bison to be nothing more than a dot, as he screams, his voice cracking raw through the night. 

* * *

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Zuko hesitates, setting aside the washed plate onto the rack. 

Uncle Iroh, feeling the need to accept another hire within their teashop, has accepted this recruit. Zuko trusts his Uncle with his life.

Not with judgements.

It’s been only an hour of work, and he realizes that he hates people, and the earth should’ve ended after Ba Sing Se.

Because Jet was the most notoriously _irritating_ coworker who can’t pick up social cues of obvious discomfort probably radiating off Zuko in heatwaves. Jet’s plastered smile and crooked brow that conveys confidence and easeful companionship, does nothing but disturb Zuko’s peace within the shop, and his need for privacy. He doesn’t _want_ to make friends and frankly, he’s quite unsure how to deal with Jet’s constant initiations. He’s not good with people.

“Li, are you ignoring me? It’s been a week since I joined, and I’m planning on staying for a while-” _great,_ “so we should get along!”

“I don’t want to,” Zuko replise flatly, feeling absolutely no sympathy towards frustration faltering Jet’s smiley composure. If anything, he enjoys it. 

“In that case, I might as well answer my question for you.” Jet pouts theatrically, jutting his lip to rotate his disgusting stalk of grain over his mouth. “In five years, you’ll be working in this tea shop, stuck with me, your buddy, your pal, and we’ll be sitting together, listening to news about the rest of the world, and maybe even the Fire Nation’s defeat and the entire population terminated.” Really, an oddly specific prediction, and there’s a certain intensity within Jet’s eyes now that makes him feel as if his reaction is analyzed, but how else could he respond but with a frozen stare of judgement? It’s _strange_. And he might be somewhat miffed too, because while he’s beginning to understand that the Fire Nation’s presence to other regions is hellish and undeserved, that doesn’t mean the civilian population are bad or deserve the consequences of the kingdom’s immoral actions.

“That’s weird. In five years, I would quit if you continued working.” He says, ignoring Jet’s uncomfortably desolate stare, knowing that the boy is pretty odd in the first place, and that he seems rather radically monomaniacal on the evils of the Fire Nation, not like that’s really uncommon though. Doesn’t have to mean anything. He grabs the dried variables of one of Uncle’s good tea sets, and begins to prepare it for the next customer.

“Lies. You’re fond of your old man. Wouldn’t do such a thing to gramps, amiright?”

“Yeah, of course. That’s why I’d quit to make sure I don’t commit homicide in his own tea shop to avoid legal trouble.” Zuko replies, with characteristic straightforwardness lacking typical shame that teenagers would have at admitting affection towards their elders. He finally meets Jet’s relentless stare. “Do you...need something?”

“Nah.” Jet smirks, his eyes inhumanely still. “But really. I’m excited to see how you turn out in five years.” 

“That’s _really_ weird. You’re really weird.” He crinkles his nose, edging his way around the tiny kitchen to step around Jet, whose towering frame now feels overwhelming in this suffocating space. Jet is uncomfortably abnormal, with an atmosphere of suspicion that Zuko isn’t sure if it’s directed at him, or maybe he’s doing it to Jet, and a cryptic attitude obscured by a charismatically bold personality. The persona itself is already too loud for Zuko, but what he can detect beneath the flaking layers of the image is even more unsettling.

“Okay, then answer for yourself.” Jet shrugs. “Make an image less weird.”

He takes a second, and suddenly, he’s reminded of just months ago when he was so close to the Avatar, the night being a consistent source of twisted realities formed in his nightmares, where it’s not even the boy slipping through his fingers that even bothers him anymore- it was the unintentionally degrading look of commiseration that rearranges his organs and coats his tongue with stomach acid.

_“Yeah! Where do you think you’ll be in five years?”_

_“Dead.”_

_Had that changed?_ As much as this tranquil life as just _Li_ diminishes his periods of cold sweats that freezes his lungs and extinguishes his fire through streams of icy rivers flushing his bloodstream and his internal flames, the fact that it’s temporary and constructed out of flimsy cardboard leaves him restless and shivering more than his bouts of stress does.

In five years, he cannot find himself as Li.

And he stares at Jet, and realizes why he doesn’t like Jet. Jet’s hawkful stare, honed into points reflected by his eyes that are pinpricks of inky blackness, resonating a bonfire driving his madness and obsessive need to figure him out like a twitching bug, is just like Azula’s. 

Azula just never hid it, even with her sickly sweet personality. She simply manipulated it in its raw form.

Jet probably isn’t even aware of it.

“Five years.” Zuko echoes quietly. _Dead_. He can’t return to Father. Sure, he craves to be accepted once more within the comforting arms of Fire Nation robes, of his city whose streets he twirled through as a child with lit peppercorns crackling between his tiny teeth, seeing merchants and nobles alike in the vast, consistently stimulated city. But that doesn’t mean he can see himself. All those images are of him as a child, and he can never replace that young, innocent boy with himself. 

He can’t go home. He hasn’t found the Avatar, and if anything, he isn’t sure if he wanted to because that means sacrifices and Zuko doesn’t know how much more he can give. (Aang saw it, saw what Zuko can’t see, what Zuko doesn’t know, Saw that Zuko, always staggering onto bruised limbs for another fight that he asks but cannot give, will not bow even if he’s running on fumes and functioning on ghosts of dreams. Aang knew that if someone like Zuko was knocked down, even with his pride glitching through silent hardware, attempting to desperately code another command, he may not get back up). 

Zuko has a constant bonfire of fight smoking out hesitations and doubt within him, but he hasn’t had kindling in so long, that he thinks if even that scrawny dress boy stamp on his will one more time, the flame has nothing to draw back on.

He doesn’t know how much longer he can live as Zuko.

But he can’t live as Li either. That’s not a realistic possibility, and such a common, unnervingly peaceful life that leaves his spinal plates rattling from trepidation within the crowding sense of peace that he could only ever translate into a false sensation out of habit, would drive him mad out of his own paranoia.

Nothing’s changed.

His answer towards the Avatar still stands, not even because he wants to die, but simply because he sees no viable option by this point. 

He’s tired, and no matter how many times he changes his identity, submerges into a new life, he’ll never be able to find rest in the bones of that thirteen-year-old withering as a handprint sears into his face. 

_Where do you want to be in five years?_

_Want?_ Does Zuko even want things anymore? Does he even have the right?

He doesn’t. He lost it years ago in the Agni Kai.

“You know. I don’t have an answer,” he replies to Jet’s unsympathetic, cold expression decorated with scribbled swirling pupils and waxy crayon teeth. “Move. Table twelve is asking for a server.” 

* * *

“Five years?”

“I’ll be famous, obviously!” Sokka yelps as Katara smacks him hard on the thigh, while Zuko flinches at the resounding slap. “I mean, c’mon. Friends with the Avatar, more-than-friends with Sukki, female warrior and certified badass-”

“Don’t you just feel ashamed for being nothing in comparison,” Katara mutters, her expression passive in the face of Sokka’s reddening appearance and undignified sputtering. “Anyways, even when you’re famous, what would you do? Like I’ll be probably _more_ famous than you because I actually do stuff instead of throw things around hoping they come back-”

“Whoa do _not_ insult my boomerang-”

“But yeah, Aang, I’ll probably be a healer or something. But I wanna travel. Visit places and different cultures. Probably go to places where they need a healer and help out.” She murmurs, her gaze gentle for the first time that night since he’s sat down with them. “Of course, we’re all gonna be friends still.”

“Yeah! I want to be a traveler too, but I wanna fight in those underground clubs again. Princess- no not you Sokka calm your heartbeat, Katara, Twinkletoes, let’s travel together especially if y’all gonna go to travelling in the first place. I mean. My parents hate that, but home is so _boring_.” 

And Zuko doesn’t speak up, he tries not to. He makes himself scarce underneath Katara’s murderous presence that conveys justified distrust and startling but understandable hate, and frankly, he doesn’t think he really deserves any companionship after all his actions. Which is actually perfectly fine for him, even if it’s unfair to them- he doesn’t want friends anyways. 

He just wants Uncle.

“You don’t like your parents?” He asks, flinching at Katara’s squint.

“Don’t assume stuff like that!” The said girl snaps.

“Chill, he was just asking.” Toph snorts, calming Zuko’s fluttering hummingbird. He didn’t _mean_ to come off as offensive, he just thought it was implied within her answer. “Nah, they’re good people, and I love them. It’s just that we have different paths.” 

And Zuko doesn’t fathom how a child could just casually refer to their parents like that, even voicing an opinion about their demands. Sure, he didn’t like some of the things his father’s done or said, but he doesn’t mention it to others, not even to family.

“What about you, Shifu Hothead?” Avatar blinks owlishly from the log he’s balancing on. Almost like Ty Lee.

And his tongue feels fat and heavy as if it was stung by Warbles. He doesn’t even feel comfortable being physically _near_ them and now the kid is trying to actively include him in such a question? A question that Aang asked, a reverberation of the same inquiration asked almost nearly a year ago.

He’s also known not to discredit Aang for his insight and intuition despite what his flippant, animated personality suggests.

Aang definitely remembers his old answer.

Well. Zuko does have _goals_. 

Restore the Fire Nation to an actually dignified population rather than such a corrupt, oppressive one. 

To defeat his Father. Whatever that entails. Maybe just change his Father’s mind, maybe an old desert dog can learn new tricks. Maybe Father could be proud. Who knows, anything can happen (except for the impossible). 

Help Azula (and he never explores on this thought, because the truth of it scares him more than the one buried deep in his mom’s legacy, than the one on how his Father views even his children).

But an actual future? 

He doesn’t have anywhere to go. After his treatment towards his uncle, sure he was forgiven, but that entire episode was a portrayal of his personality: someone who gave away the only person who actually cared about him and supported his foolishly reckless endeavors, only for temporary relief and childish dreams. He doesn’t deserve to drag his uncle through such a life like his.

He’s maybe around sixteen, and he’s still the same way since he turned ten.

Staring into the vortexing abyss, it's silent and foreboding in a quiet white box encasing him with the whirlpool that represents his future, of what he can see for himself and in himself.

He’s still the same lost child, and he still doesn’t know what he wants. 

The fact that nothing’s changed since he turned ten, bothers him more than he likes to admit- and _god he’s so lonely_ and that thought digests his future and his life and _he’s nothing_ and he’s cold, cold in his white little room with the River of Styx showing nothing and not even hell or the dead- just _nothing._

And maybe Toph senses something, something in his stale heartbeats, because she’s sitting upright for once, her posture impeccably firm just like her gaze, burying deep into him. 

He wishes the little hummingbird his mom nurtured to breathe from the dead when he was stillborn, desperate to make sure it kept flying, collapses.

“I’m not sure,” he answers, his voice hollow and his answer haunting.

And something must show on his expression, because Katara’s glare lightens into one of doubt, Sokka’s unexpectedly silent due to _him_ , judging by the direction of his twitching eyebrows, and there’s something dragging on Aang’s youthful expression. Toph must’ve sensed something too, as she’s now wildly flicking her head about, saying “what?”

“Like, you don’t know what you want?”

 _More like I can’t get what I want_. 

“Something like that.”

“I mean. Maybe you’ll become a firebender trainer for all people! You’re pretty great, after all. Shifu Hotman.” Aang tacks on the dumb nickname, probably to alleviate the strange shroud of surrealness.

It’s almost as if he doesn’t exist, or perhaps he does, the only actor in this empty play where everyone else are constructed of felt and cardboard cutouts and who knows who’s directing them because everything is fake and unreal and did anything in his life ever _was_ real? In his white little box, with other fake souls standing on little paper feet and crayon faces underneath a cutout of a magazine sun, tied to the endless ceiling with string, being the only one actually alive and feeling, and _alone._

And out of nowhere, he feels homesick. The same sensation that colours everything too bright, vivid and neon that makes his head spin and stomach churn with indescribable nausea that he can’t decipher or unknot because there’s no real source of it. 

Happy.

In five years, he wants to be _happy_ because that was never a real emotion. Even as Li, there was just a false premise of tranquility that would simultaneously beat his hummingbird heart with a bamboo rod and also remind him at least he’s safe for now (but for how long?). He wasn’t _happy_. Just content with it in the meantime, but he never truly enjoyed it. Just preferred it to his father’s discriminatory gaze, Azula’s omnipresent influence, and the biggest presence being his mother’s absence.

And he nearly says that. Nearly tells the group of wide-eyed, expecting children that in five years, he just wants to be _happy_.

Happiness is another spawn of the unchangeable abyss that represents the possibilities and opportunities for his future. Because not only does happiness not exist as long as his sister’s mental fragments are lost in the corners of their empty, large house in the form of burnt dolls and broken toys, but also in the end, he doesn’t really deserve it.

And he doesn’t want this painfully hopeful and sacrificial-to-the-point-of-suicide group of misfits to learn jackshit about him. He isn’t sure if it’s really pride, or just the fact that in the end these tidbits don’t matter to them or them in five years, that’s keeping him from spewing his guts out in a river of curdled blood and infected tears.

“Really don’t have anything.” He murmurs. _In five years, I want to see myself happy._ I want to not be alone.

“Seriously? Not even like, you know. Being ruler of the nation?” And Katara’s accusatory timbre but genuine curiosity is what reminds Zuko that apathy is the most important mask, as his sister taught him. 

Azula always lies. 

And maybe it’s for a reason. 

Zuko, temperamental to a fault that emotions are coded into his reactions, hardwired into his facial expressions, knows that all that, and whatever else is mixed into his potion of thoughts and fears, can never be seen.

Because indifference is just a chipping layer of chemicals painted over real emotions, because whatever those may be, are dangerous. 

Azula realized that since she was young, her crippling mind and chronological memories of pain and hurt labeled as lessons in life, compact and organized in boxes of insouciance and uncaring observation.

“Ruler of the nation? Sounds boring.” Zuko confides, ignoring how suspicion pinches the ends of Katara’s eyes, and disbelief unhinges Sokka’s jaw.

“But the nation needs a ruler after Emperor Ozai.” Toph scoffs. “You’d be a great leader, better than your psycho-sister.”

A snark lies on his tongue, jumpy as Azula’s lightning, to defend his sister. Yeah, she’s kinda janked up, but they don’t understand it.

They never saw Azula when she was four, teetering after butterflies, and laughing at the first sign of her fire that reflected amazement in her eyes and jealousy in his.

But they don’t need any more reasons to believe he’d ever side with the Fire Nation, or his sister once more. Especially not Katara.

(Katara’s narrow-minded emotions and ability to utilise them as a double-bladed whip, lashing out at others, almost reminds him of Azula.)

“Oh, like a traitor like him is any better.” Katara comments. And Zuko, used to her snippy attitude and direct insults, can only be amused. His Father would say the same. “He probably couldn’t be loyal to his own nation.”

And maybe the fact that he finds her statement ironic does somehow translate onto his deadpanned countenance, because her burning glower suddenly jackknifes in temperature. “What? Find that funny?”

“A bit.” He snorts.

“Why?” Sokka automatically leaps onto the train chugging away from the previously tense atmosphere. 

“I was considered a traitor of my nation for the past two years or so.” He reminds simply, only to tense at a sudden eruption of noise.

“What the _f-_ ”

“Wait, even before you joined us?”

“Y’all are _loud_ -”

“Toph did you eat all of the yams-”

Right. He simply assumed they knew- _everyone_ knew. While normally his father would avoid publicizing such dishonorable news about his familyline, he also knows that his Agni Kai couldn’t be contained amongst witnessing nobles, who _love_ dragging other family names through the mud for the sake of conversation. His story, replicated through plays, bedtime stories teaching kids about obedience, and rumors vastly come to the conclusion that either he died, or was banished. The latter is a popular theory, even if it was never confirmed. Though, he wonders what his ending is to the majority of the people. He could probably just open the newest edition of the manipulated, propaganda historic books taught in everyday public schools about their people, and find out how his story would end with its false yet officially accepted details.

Though, he figures everyone knows it’s banishment. The fact that now the nation knows he hasn’t died on sea, proven through Wanted posters stapled everywhere, is evidence that he was just on maybe a three year vacation.

However, it makes sense that other nations wouldn’t be aware of him. After all, he never made a real name for himself as a kid, and probably wouldn’t have underneath Azula’s public competitions showcasing her power at a young age. If not for that fateful Agni Kai, his name wouldn’t even be recognized by common citizens. 

Well, at least there was some growth: five years ago, he would’ve regretted that day. Now, he doesn’t because in the end, he was _right_. His Father was wrong, and maybe he understands his Father’s reactions and beliefs, Zuko figures that it doesn’t matter.

If he stayed with his Father, in the nation, most likely, he wouldn’t have saw a future anyways. He would still be the same lost child, unable to find his way out the creaky mansion with dim rooms housing the forgotten living and glorified dead, with nothing for himself. 

Nothing would change, so might as well choose a past more interesting. A path where at the very least, he's able to see the Fire Nation's influence on other populations. 

_Character growth._

“Um. Yeah. I was banished a while ago.” He says simply.

“Seriously? Why?” Sokka inquires, and Zuko shifts his knees close, folding his arms protectively over his chest. 

“Sokka, you can’t just ask stuff like that!” Toph, someone that Zuko has taken to be probably the least considerate when weighted against her curiosity, scorns. It’s surprising. This entire evening that Aang dragged him into eating dinner with them around the campfire has mostly went smoothly because of Toph’s presence, who’s a formidable opponent to Katara’s glares and sudden and unprovoked jabs.

And to Sokka’s questionable stupidity, as well.

“I’m just curious.” Sokka sulks.

“It’s fine.” Zuko says suddenly, not wanting to leave Sokka uncomfortable. For one, he doesn’t care, really, it was an accident. An insensitive one, maybe, but it’s not as if Zuko’s the best at interpreting moods either, and that often leads to him mistakenly saying the wrong things. And secondly, Katara will actually hang him, even if he’s getting the impression that she wants to do the same to Sokka as well. 

And Sokka blinks, his pout unknotting into a wide grin and expecting eyes, and _hey just because he said it was fine, doesn’t mean he suddenly thinks the question is._ He was never good at saying no to strangers, or just in general, _nice people_ , despite his stubbornness and opinionated personality. The only person he’d be ready to unleash his blunt beliefs or objections to would be to Uncle Iroh, who he’s comfortable enough to unconsciously be so honest around without the instinctive nature to appease. He was selfish and spoiled by the understanding that Uncle Iroh wouldn’t be initially disappointed by him. Another species of people he felt comfortable saying no to would be the ones who are just _too annoying_ _to care about._

“I got banished because I spoke out against my Father during a war meeting.” 

“You got _banished_ , for that? Damn, your dad must be pretty upset. Couldn’t he do anything?” Sokka whistles lowly, and really, is the cultural differences that wide or is Sokka just sometimes missing a few brussels in the brainpan? Zuko stares at him in disbelief.

“The emperor has the most power. Of course he has the power to do whatever,” he says slowly.

“Yeah, so why didn’t he stop the banishment?” Sokka’s now the one staring at him, as if he’s the dumb one.

“Why would he? He was the one who executed it?”

And upon that conclusion, suddenly, everyone’s riled up once more, and Zuko groans at the sudden intrusion of sound.

_“What-”_

“That’s dumb of him.” 

But the silence that comes afterwards is worse.

And Zuko can automatically identify the identical looks on the siblings, on even Toph who assumedly never seen an expression in her life: _my father wouldn’t do something like that_.

To be fair, none of them had an emperor for a father who had to uphold reputations and whatnot. “I was being disrespectful, in front of other important generals as well. It’s not unreasonable. And I lost to an Agni Kai. I was a really loud, arrogant child.” Sure, Zuko still believes what he said during that meeting was morally right and reasonable, but that doesn’t mean his execution was excusable. He really was annoying, he even cringes thinking back on his behavior, the way he spoke back to the adults, even though to this day he doubts he wouldn’t react similarly. 

Doesn’t learn from his mistakes.

His bending tutor said something similar. Azula did, too.

 _Then again, some of the generals are dicks_ , he sours, as a certain, irritating commander surfaces in his head. Those people automatically loses the default amount of respect preserved as a human right. _Sorry, he doesn’t make the rules._

He wishes he spat in Zhao’s face at least once in his life.

“But to _banish_ you?” Sokka murmurs, obvious discomfort puppeteering his screwed eyebrows and large eyes, that reflect the light of the fire they’re gathered around, making them appear glassy and cloudy with thought. Unusual. He didn’t think the kid even had anything in his skull.

“You wouldn’t understand. Your father isn’t an emperor of a nation.” 

At this, scarlet highlights the boy’s olive cheeks. “He was the leader of our tribe, though!” 

“That’s still different. My father has to set an example for an entire regime, it makes sense because of his reputation and power.” 

“He _banished_ you because of what? Some Acne-kai or whatever and because you spoke up? How old were you?” Toph says sharply, her unfriendly snarl focusing on him for the first time that night. 

“Agni Kai,” he corrects firstly. “I was thirteen.”

This time, to his relief, no sudden howls and randomly generated questions. 

Then, watching three sets of undecipherable stares sourced from blank, hard eyes makes him nervously lower his hands to clench the log he’s seated on. _Maybe the silence is worse._ Their sudden gaze fixation that’s clouding the mood with something purple and unreadable to his socially-inept ass, makes him feel as if sanded ants are swarming his back and burrowing their claws into his flesh.

“When I was thirteen, I was a brat. The worst my dad would do was shout at me for doing something dumb. He wouldn't _banish_ me.” Sokka confesses, unashamed, his voice injected with a tone that Zuko can’t properly identify, but is gentle enough to resent. 

He wishes they were being loud and annoying again.

“What’s. What’s an Agni Kai?” Sokka continues upon Zuko’s clear unwillingness to respond. 

And Zuko’s done. He needs to snip this thread of topic and burn the ends so it can never fray or pick up again. Seal it with wax. He doesn’t know. They’re prying too far into their life with unintended cutting curiosity, because they just wanted to know with detached eyes, greedily seeking for entertainment from shock-factor. With inadvertent hurt, they’re digging their fingers into old wounds, tearing through the fresh, sickly weak layer of healing that grew over them with blunt nails, digging for a story that may produce shallow sympathy, but ultimately become nothing more to them than a story.

 _And haven’t I given enough?_ Months ago, in a tea shop, he knew that he couldn’t become Zuko in five years, that he had nothing left to give to feed this image, this character of his.

He thinks if he gives this aspect of himself, and be the one to saw the dead skin off his eye and let the blood seep through the cracks of his body held together in stitches of red yarn and staples of rusted metal, he’ll truly and resolutely die.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” Aang says gently, and Zuko wants the flames they’re surrounding to flare and ascend thousands of miles above, until the element licks the atmosphere and obscures the stars with plumes of smoke. He hates that voice. 

He wants to burn the boy until his skin, pruney and withered on itself, becomes indecipherable to the point where the arrow on his skin becomes burnt jerky like every other body does once on fire. He’s not special then. (Zuko wants to say he feels bad for thinking that. He feels bad for not thinking that, if that counts for anything. He really isn’t a good person.)

“It’s a battle. Agni Kai is a one-on-one battle.”

Confusion muddles the sickly feel of sympathy that they’re wading through.

“How does that work? You lost a battle?”

“Yeah.” 

"To who?"

And perhaps they’re waiting for him to elaborate, but even Sokka doesn’t initiate or trigger the start of that, something that Zuko is thankful for because he doesn’t know if he could retaliate against it. 

“The fire’s starting to go out. I’ll collect more wood.” It most certainly is not, and it’s comical that they’re gathering firewood rather than requesting for Zuko’s help (if anything, he thinks Katara would slice off his hands if he even offered to bend), but at this moment, even they don’t appear to find the situation humorous.

* * *

He’s sitting next to the cell, whose inmate is utterly unresponsive after the first couple days of vicious snarls and rabid leers.

Her lips, bruised and discoloured like the rest of her pale, translucent skin (Zuko recognizes symptoms of malnourishment from his mom’s old textbook), and her hairstyle of torn tufts and thinning patches from frenzied hands and descended minds appears to be a halo of thorns and grease.

“Please. Eat.” His words, redundant and lost of meaning after so many repeats. He’s tired.

He’s been tired for the last seven years.

On script, obedient for once in her life, she follows the stageplay formed not by either of their hands but by some higher, unsympathetic deity. She doesn’t respond, as predicted and almost written.

“Ty Lee and Mai want to drop by one day.”

“I miss you. A lot.” He says, and like a true confidant, he knows those words will be locked in this time forever, because the other party may not even be considered sentient by this point.

His next question, spurred on from being tired and being lost and being lonely, that he just needs a similar tie whose life, never to cross his like they’re two parallel lines spawned on a similar plane of reality, to have an answer.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

The sudden move him scares him out of his wooden stool, as pale amber eyes fixate onto him, quivering faster than the spasms in her muscles and tremors along her soul. 

Azula’s mouth opens, and she screams.

And for the first time in his life, Zuko doesn’t feel that alone anymore. 

_Where do you see yourself in five years?_

I want to not be alone.

Maybe at least something did come true.

His sister's broken figure, and mind groomed by Ozai was shattered, but she can't piece herself into something that doesn't see Father the way she always had. Can't use old pieces of a certain ideology and make a new one completely opposite of it.

Her composure and mindset fragmented, but still jagged and if not sharper now, just lost in the stumbling dark, he can take and glue to his own torn, hideously disfigured personality and composition.

But he knows they can't ever be anything natural: two artificial things can't make something organic.

He should just exit.

But he stays, because there's no one else, and in the end, she doesn't have anyone else either.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic, "Exit: Pursued By A Bear" is somehow meant to convey the idea that zuko doesn't really feel real half the time, or everything's surreal as if run like a script, the way that Shakespeare sorta rights all his directions down within the dialogue.
> 
> let me just say: when i found out shakespeare wrote that line "exit: pursued by a bear" i was shOcked because i'm an uncultured swine.
> 
> ALSO Yo THANKS FOR READING!! means a lot :)  
> pls leave a comment or kudos if ur willing (it's fine if u dont too!)


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